


Angel

by TastesLikeSTFU



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Christian Mythology, Gen, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-25
Updated: 2013-06-25
Packaged: 2017-12-16 03:11:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/857091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TastesLikeSTFU/pseuds/TastesLikeSTFU
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompt, "Hannibal as the angel of death".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angel

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt can be found here:  
> http://hannibalkink.dreamwidth.org/2246.html?thread=3692230#cmt3692230
> 
> Now, I did fill this on the kink meme itself but didn't actually check over my writing before posting (herpderp) so it looks and sounds better on here than on the kink meme.
> 
> I've also mixed book!canon and tv!canon.
> 
> I hope this satisfies.
> 
> _Additionally, if you should meet the actors, writers, creator, or anyone involved with the show/book/movie this fanfiction is about, please do not inform them, encourage them to read, or make them read this unless you have explained to me in detail why you want to expose them to my writing and have received my explicit permission to do so._

Will wakes to find himself laying on one of the steel tables in the morgue at Quantico. He sits up slowly to counteract his pounding headache. Pushing aside the folded sheet that had been placed across his hips, he stands.

There are lab coats on wall mounted hooks nearby. Will grabs one, pulls it on and buttons it all the way up in order to shield his nudity. Quantico _is_ a bustling place, after all, full of people who might see him.  
However… despite Will's memory of the morgue being one of the quietest rooms in Quantico, it was still always busy. Now, it is strangely empty.  
Even when a building has fewer people in it than usual, one can still hear the hum, feel the buzz, of life. Of moving, breathing, living human beings, even if they are out of sight.  
Will does not feel that energy, the feeling like one is not alone, because he is.

His bare feet slap the tile, the sound makes up for the distinct lack of noise.  
Will ventures into the hallway, looking either way for a sign of someone, then he begins to traverse the building. Checking every room whose door is closed and even those whose door is not.  
Rooms that were previously unlit the last time Will was here are now brightly illuminated; fluorescent bulbs humming loudly in the sudden surplus of space left by the sudden lack of people.

The lights are on and nobody's home.

Will manages to make his way to Jack's office. The lights are on there, too. But when he opens the door, he finds Jack's seat is occupied.

"Hello, Will."

"Hello, Dr. Lecter."

Hannibal is toying with some crystal ornament from Jack's desk. He sets it back down in favor of standing to greet Will.  
He is wearing a three-piece suit that Will has never seen. To be honest, the last time he'd seen Hannibal, the man was in a blue jumpsuit, locked behind plexiglass in the basement of Baltimore's Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Will might never have seen this particular suit on Hannibal before his incarceration.  
It is a charcoal grey vest beneath a jacket of the same color, blood red dress shirt and a black silk tie. It doesn't strike Will as something Hannibal would wear, but he can't picture him without it.

"It is a pleasure to meet you in person once more, Will. After our last interaction, I feared I may never get to see you again. But now, it seems, I was mistaken."

Will shifts, making eye contact with the wall over Hannibal's shoulder.  
"I can't say I'm pleased to see you, though, Dr. Lecter."

Hannibal smiles with a hint of teeth.  
"Walk with me." He replies, stepping around the desk, passing Will and heading for the door. Will stands in the office for a few bemused seconds before following.

"Where is everyone?" Will asks, catching up and matching Hannibal's stride.

"They are not here. It's just you and me. For the time being."  
Will isn't sure he likes the sound of that.

"No one here but us…"

"Yes?" Hannibal casts a critical eye at Will as they walk.

"Aren't you going to kill me?"

"That is incredibly obtuse. Even for you, Will."

Will snorts indignantly, "I don't know it isn't. You manipulated me- emotionally and psychologically, got me locked away, gutted me and nearly killed me if not for the fact that I had a gun. You sent a delusional serial killer to my house. How do I know you're not going to try to kill me again?"

Hannibal barks a laugh and says, "I do respect the dead despite how I… dispose of their bodies."

"What?" Will stops in the middle of the hallway, brows raised high and he would look absolutely ridiculous with the oversized lab coat hanging on him like a nightgown but the expression on his face counteracts the thought of a Will Graham that is anything less than absolutely serious.

"I do not disrespect the dead, Will. No matter how I may treat them after they are gone, I am still completely respectful of them as when they were alive."

"But… I'm not dead. I'm standing right here, talking with you."

Hannibal turns fully around to address Will now, instead of just rotating the upper portion of his body.  
Their eyes meet this time and Will feels a spike of fear at what he sees there- or, what he _doesn't_ see. Hannibal's eyes are an earthy red-brown; warm but ultimately empty, void of anything but an old feeling sort of impression. Will tries but cannot empathize with him. Because there is nothing there to empathize with. There is only a yawning chasm.

"I'm not dead, am I?"

"You are a highly intelligent man, Will. I think you know. The pieces are all there. The evidence is presented to you."

Will presses his hands to his face and rubs roughly. It is only then that he realizes that he feels smooth skin. He does not feel the deep scarring left by Dolarhyde's knife so long ago. He takes his hands away to look at Hannibal with widened eyes. He unbuttons the lab coat far enough down to examine his gut. Smooth, unblemished, untarnished skin meets his eyes and fingertips.

"Oh, oh _Jesus Christ_." Will's voice goes thin and breathy, his knees feel wobbly. He backs up until he hits the wall and then slides down it.  
Hannibal comes to kneel in front of him, "Come now, Will. Not much farther."

He looks up, face slack with shock and asks softly, "Where are we going, Dr. Lecter?"

"Wherever is next."

"Somewhere good, I hope."

"There is only one way to find out." Hannibal sticks his hand out and Will takes it, allowing the man he once considered to be a friend to pull him to his feet.  
Standing, he buttons the coat back up with sticky, fumbling fingers. Soon after, they continue to walk and Will recognizes the path toward the front doors of Quantico. They're leaving. Well, at least _Will_ is leaving.

"Why are you here if I'm the one that's dead?"

"I'm here to take you to wherever is to be your next destination."

"So, you're Charon?"

"Certainly you don't believe I'm taking you to Hades?"

"I don't know what to believe anymore. Are you even the same Hannibal Lecter that I know? That I _knew_?"

"I am one in the same."

"I don't understand. Why are you of all people walking with me? Why not Jack or Molly or Alana?"

"Why not someone you see as wholesome? Will, I am disappointed in you. You've become ignorant in your old age."

"Well. To be blunt, why not someone good? In moral fiber?"

"Because it is my job."

"What do you mean?"

They've come to approach the doors to Quantico, the normally clear glass doors now opaque as if covered by fog.  
Apprehension tightens at the base of Will's spine and he feels himself involuntarily slow down.

"It is my job to walk with people who have died. To deliver their souls to where they belong."

"You're the grim reaper…?"

Hannibal has to laugh at how dry Will's voice is.

"No. I am simply an angel of death."

"What, like- like Samael? Or is it Azrael?"

They slow to a stop in front of the doors, now. They face one another, Hannibal has a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"Those are only a few of my names."

Will's expression is priceless and he says, "What, and I suppose 'Hannibal' is just as… deathly?"

"As deathly as any name can be."

"Might as well be Voldemort."

Hannibal does not reply to this. Instead he says, "It is time to go, Will."

He wants to ask so many more questions of him. He wants to ask why; why manipulate him? Why kill so many people? Why consume them? Why hurt so many others? But he just guesses that angels must have their fun, too. However malevolent it may be.  
Will looks out over the bank of muggy glass doors, behind which everything is hidden from view.  
He can see now that it _is_ fog pressing to the glass, like smoke curling around the edges of fingers as someone holds a cigarette. He watches it swirl and whorl before murmuring, "Hannibal, I'm afraid."

Hannibal squeezes Will's shoulder gently in his palm, sliding his hand down the man's arm and intertwining their fingers together. A connection between the two of them that is, for once, harmless. Comforting.

"Let's go."

Hannibal opens the door and the mist comes rolling sluggishly over the floor toward them.  
They exit the building together.


End file.
